Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian has given us some awesome music over the years. That being said, Ian flat out wishes he could abolish the Internet from existence and that kind of sucks, because we here at Metal Injection thoroughly enjoy the Internet! He says in an interview with Rock Svierge:
"…if a genie came out of the bottle and gave me the option of abolishing the Internet and it would disappear like it never existed and nobody even remembered we ever had it and things went back to the way they were, I would prefer the old way, for sure. It's just proven — people used to buy records and now they don't. That makes a big difference in any musician who's making albums and it obviously makes a big difference in our lives as guys in bands. I definitely prefer the way when we used to make records and people would buy them. I definitely prefer that way rather than people stealing them or just listening for free on a fucking streaming service! To me, that's no way to get your fucking music! I prefer having an album or a CD in my hands and dealing with it that way and having a bit more mystique about the end."
It's a respectable opinion to have, but I think Ian might be going a little overboard here. Obviously people are stealing records and everything else bad that comes along with the Internet. You're never going to have a perfect system, but what about all the good things we've all learned about music from the Internet? I'm sure Ian has discovered plenty of bands over the years by pointlessly clicking on YouTube videos, etc.
Also, yeah- physical format is important to some people and that's awesome. Personally, I'm a big vinyl person. It doesn't diminish the fact that I want to stream music or buy it digitally though! I feel like Ian is recognizing one end of the spectrum and in doing so, he's saying the other end makes no sense. He continues:
"Case in point, Kiss never could've done what they did in the '70s and kept their identities hidden now. I mean, look at Ghost. How long did it take before there were pictures of those guys all over the Internet? It wasn't very long. There just isn't that mystique thing about bands anymore. Only certain bands can really control it, like AC/DC. You don't ever see or hear anything about AC/DC until they decide that they're gonna say something. Even now, AC/DC is all on Twitter and all over the place because they've got tour dates coming and it's kinda weird and it's almost like it's too much. I preferred it when you didn't hear anything and then maybe once in a while you would hear something, but that's only one man's opinion."
I agree with the Kiss point, but if anyone really wanted to keep a piece of news quiet then it's not like it's completely impossible due to the existence of the Internet. Ian does have some good stuff to say though, because he's a smart guy:
"Yeah, I know! Like everything in life, there's good and bad to it. I think the good part of the Internet, the good tool, is that there's no middle man, so we don't have to rely on the media or the press or the radio, like you used to, in a sense. In the '80s, there were a lot of magazines that promoted this type of music, but they came out once a month or every two weeks. Now we can go on Facebook or whatever and tell people what's happening. You get instant response and you're able to respond back. That's something I find really cool. The idea that someone can write me something on Twitter and I can respond directly back to them and start a conversation, which we couldn't do before. I think of that from a fan's point of view, because I'm a music fan too. I think about when I was a kid, if I could've sent a message to Steve Harris [Iron Maiden] and maybe he would've written me back, even if just to say, 'Cheers! Thank you!', that would've been the coolest thing in the world. I'm still like that when I get an e-mail from Gene Simmons or somebody. I'll be e-mailing them about something and they write me back. I save all those because I think it's so cool that I have an e-mail from Gene Simmons. Things like that with the Internet, I really appreciate and I feel that we can use them to our advantage."
Thoughts?
